Fanaticism and other things I don’t wish to pass along

A few minutes before 6 p.m. Saturday I’ll quietly leave Nicki and the kid at a birthday party/crawfish boil and walk home, where I’ll sit alone and watch a basketball game. It sounds like a fairly harmless — if somewhat selfish — pursuit. In actuality it’s meant to be selfless. I don’t wish for them to have to watch me come unwound in mixed company while watching a gaggle of kids half my age play a game.

I’ll not delve deep into the increasingly loud debate about college basketball’s status as a weigh way station for teenagers headed toward the professional level, other than to say my personal opinion on the matter does not overlap with the current model, particularly as practiced by Kentucky. OK, I’ll also add that I think it turns out worse professionals. Anyway, this isn’t about rules and how to tiptoe along them. It’s about behavior, which is something I’ve tried to modify some over the past year, particularly while driving.

It occurs to me it’s worth trying to modify this behavior while watching one of the very few games of any sort that I watch during the year. (Baseball I love, football not so much.) I was sort of born into it. See . . .

But I also realized if I can cut out the flippity flippery in the car — which I’ve fairly successfully done — it’s very likely I can do so while watching some game full of teens. It’s not that I think the act of rooting is necessarily bad. But there’s probably a right and a wrong way to do it. And I’ve done a lot of the wrong way.